See discussions, stats, and author profiles for this publication at: https://www.researchgate.

net/publication/270586395

Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing Productivity of Oil

Wells

Conference Paper · May 2014

DOI: 10.13140/RG.2.1.2761.6807

CITATIONS READS
2 304

3 authors:

Saifaddeen Sallam Mohammad Munir Ahmad

Teesside University Khwaja Fareed University of Engineering and Information Technology, Rahim Yar Kh…
8 PUBLICATIONS   7 CITATIONS    56 PUBLICATIONS   655 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE SEE PROFILE

Mohamed Nasr
Omdurman Ahlia University
11 PUBLICATIONS   12 CITATIONS   

SEE PROFILE

Some of the authors of this publication are also working on these related projects:

Establishing and improving Key Performance Indicators(KPI's) for Manufacturing companies View project

Article Framework for Evaluation and Process Improvement of Workover Rigs in the Oilfields View project

All content following this page was uploaded by Saifaddeen Sallam on 13 April 2015.

The user has requested enhancement of the downloaded file.

Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing Productivity of Oil Wells

Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing

Productivity of Oil Wells

Saifaddeen Sallam1*, Mohammad Munir Ahmad1 and Mohamed Nasr2

1 2
School of Science and Engineering Department of Petroleum Engineering
Teesside University University of Tripoli
Middelsbrough, UK Tripoli, Libya

ABSTRACT

This paper highlights some of the reasons for the oil production decline in petroleum wells and underlies principles
to produce a new model for the oil wells’ production performance. The research starts by introducing some
information about the available world energy resources which shows that petroleum and natural gas are used
more than any other energy sources. The research also presents further information about the productivity index of
oil producing wells and their performance including how this is affected and how it can be enhanced using
different available methods. The total world oil reserves, gap in production and demand and how this research is
important for increasing the oil production is explained. The analysis shows that a 15.47% increase in the oil
reserves between the years 2008 and 2012 had caused the total world oil reserves to increase from 1,280,114
million barrels in 2008 to reach 1,478,211 million barrels in 2012. The research has showed that the additional
198,097 million barrels are sufficient to cover the world’s demand for oil for about six years based on the rate of
oil demand in 2012 of 32,459 million barrels. However, the total world’s oil production in 2012 is 26,611 million
barrels which is not enough to meet the demand. Therefore, the aim of this research is to find suitable methods for
producing oil from the available oil reserves to cover the demand by reducing the losses in the oil producing wells
rather than depleting the newly found reserves. However, this research is still ongoing and it is expected to give
more interesting and valuable results in the future.

1. INTRODUCTION

There are many difficulties encountered by oil production companies during the production of oil which lead to
losses and decline in oil output. Some of these difficulties include formation damage and early water production which
cause the ratio of water to oil production to rise at an early stage of the production. These problems lead to a decline in
oil production and lower the performance of the well if not solved properly. The purpose of this research is to develop
a production model which will enable a prediction of the oil production from the oil wells by early identification of the
causes of the losses and taking remedial actions. The model will help in the primary identification of the reasons for
production decline and assist in maintaining and enhancing the production output. Moreover, it will also help in
improving the production rate and enhance the output by reducing the quantity of the residual oil in oil wells.
The exploration and production of petroleum have been important issues for a long time. This is because oil and
natural gas are considered to be the most demandable world energy resources [1]. According to data gathered from the
Energy Information Administration (EIA) [2], oil and natural gas represent 37% and 26% of the world energy
consumption respectively as illustrated in figure 1. Therefore, petroleum production companies are concerned with
how much of these energy resources can be produced. Consequently, it was important for petroleum producers to work
harder to maintain the optimum production of these resources and to investigate any existing or expected problems
which lead to decreasing or stopping their production.

* Corresponding author’s e-mail: s.sallam@tees.ac.uk

 Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, FAIM2014

Figure 1: Illustration of the world energy consumption, (a reproduced image [2])

2. LITERATURE REVIEW AND JUSTIFICATION OF RESEARCH PROBLEM

There are many problems which lead to petroleum production decline. These problems include formation damage
which happens in reservoirs as a result of many reasons such as wax precipitation, scale formation, water coning and
fine migration [3]. Other problems may also occur during the application of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) techniques
where different fluids are injected into the reservoir [4]. Some of the problems which occur during EOR applications
include, reservoir fracturing and reservoir collapsing which may happen as result of generating a very high pressure in
the injected area of the reservoir [5]. Moreover, pore blockage and permeability reduction may also happen because of
sand movement, clay swelling and chemical reactions due to incompatibility between the injected materials and either
the reservoir rocks or the original reservoir fluids [3]. Another problem could be the early water breakthrough where
the injected water bypasses the oil towards the production wells due to reasons of wettability and capillary pressure [6].
Such these problems will lead to oil production decline by reducing or closing the reservoir pores which allow the fluids
(oil, gas and water) to flow towards the producing wells.
There are many early precautions for avoiding and monitoring oil production decline problems. For example,
petroleum specialists use the productivity index which refers to the ability of reservoirs to produce oil at a chosen flow
rate when a specific reservoir pressure is applicable to monitor oil and gas production rates [7]. The productivity index
is defined by the following equation:
J  Qo /( Pr  Pwf ) (1)
where, J= productivity index (BBL/Day/Psi), Qo= oil flow rate (BBL/Day), Pr= average reservoir pressure (Psi) and
Pwf= the bottom well flowing pressure (Psi).
According to Dandekar [3], there are different types of oil reservoirs where oil is generated and stored before it is
produced. The production of oil from these reservoirs is affected by the type of rocks which form each reservoir.
Indeed, these reservoirs can either be heterogeneous or homogeneous according to the primary formation of the earth
layers. These reservoirs are classified into two main groups according to their type:
 Sandstone Reservoirs: this type of oil reservoir is formed from small particles of sand bonded together by
melting materials such as clays to form the sandstone rocks [7]. The permeability of sandstone rocks vary
according to the structure of the rock. Some sandstone formations could have as high permeability as 1000
millidarcy (md) or more whereas other formations could have as low permeability as 0.1 md or less [5].
 Carbonate Reservoirs: this type of reservoir, also known as limestone reservoirs, has very low permeability
and high sensitivity to water. Carbonate reservoirs are more likely to have problems than sandstone reservoirs
and, therefore, it need more care when dealing with it [3].
The natural production of oil from these reservoirs is related to many factors. The most important factor is the
average initial reservoir pressure (Pi) which when it decreases, other secondary production mechanisms (i.e. EOR) will
have to be introduced [4]. According to Lyons and Plisga [8], it is very important when applying EOR techniques to
have some knowledge about the type of formation which will be treated as wrong input data will lead to unexpected
results. The reservoir initial pressure is mainly related to parameters such as the depth, the size of the reservoir and the
initial driving mechanism which can be water or gas [4]. The other factors which also affect the natural production of oil
Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing Productivity of Oil Wells

are permeability and porosity of rocks, viscosity and density of oil which are also related to other factors such as
reservoir temperature and pressure [4].
The permeability of rock is an important parameter during oil production as it refers to the ability of rock to pass the
fluids through its pore spaces [9]. The permeability is an important petrophysical rock property for controlling
petroleum production. Therefore, this parameter has been under investigation by many researchers for a long time
either by conducting some experimental work using uniform core samples or by the use of drill cuttings which are
collected during drilling operations. According to Fens et al. [10], many researchers carried out their studies with the
aim of predicting petrophysical rock properties from small size core samples such as sidewall samples and drill
cuttings. The main drive for these studies was the increasing number of deep exploration prospects which face harsh
circumstances such as high pressure and temperature where obtaining core samples for lab analysis is difficult and
expensive. In addition, the concentration on investigating rock permeability has been very important for getting
information about the maximum possible flow which means producing more petroleum with fewer problems. One of
the famous correlations for estimating rock permeability from drill cuttings was modified by Timur [11] for the North
American oil fields. Timur [11] looked at the use of drill cuttings as these are collected regularly while drilling the wells
and their properties of porosity and fluid saturation can easily be measured. Timur [11] developed his correlation for
estimating rock permeability of these cuttings when their porosity and initial water saturation are known in the
following form:
k = 0.136 × ∅^4.4/ (Swi) ^2 (2)
where, k= permeability (md), Ø= porosity (%) of bulk volume, and Swi= initial water saturation (%) of pore volume.
Other researchers such as Baptist and Sweeney [12] conducted a series of experimental work on core samples to
examine whether rock permeability changes or not when injecting waters of different salinities through core samples
that contain different amounts of clays. A more recent research by Abbasi et al. [13] investigated what types of clay
minerals could reduce the permeability of rocks and block the pore spaces when injecting waters of different salinities
to the rock samples. Their research was mainly to gain knowledge about the sensitivity of different types of clays to
changes in water salinity. However, none of the previously two mentioned researches produced any correlation for
estimating rock permeability.
Therefore, this research is aimed to continue the investigations about the performance of oil producing wells and
how the permeability of rocks to the different kinds of hydrocarbons is affected before and after the application of EOR
using the water injection technique. The new ideas in this research include correlating rock permeability to water
injection parameters and to the rock and reservoir fluid parameters taking into account all the affecting factors such as
water salinity, reservoir pressure and oil viscosity.

3. OBJECTIVES OF THE RESEARCH

Permeability is the main factor which controls fluid flow in porous media (rocks). The alteration of this parameter
could affect the productivity of the oil wells either positively or negatively. For example, when the permeability of
rocks increases this will result in more oil production as the pores of the reservoir rocks become larger allowing higher
flow rate of fluids. Therefore, the objectives of this research are summarized as follow:
 Develop an oil production model that can be applied in the oil industry for determining the optimum oil
production parameters and to find out what factors that affect the permeability of rocks and how to minimize
the damage of their effect on the reservoir.
 Increase the knowledge of petroleum engineers about the effect of using different ranges of water salinities on
the different types of reservoir rocks as this will lead to minimizing the risk of damaging petroleum reservoirs
during the application of water injection.
 Help in estimating the future oil production performance of oil wells and determine the affecting parameters
which enhance their productivity.
 Provide an optimum oil production plan that takes into account any parameters which may affect the reservoir
rock and fluid properties. This plan should also help in avoiding the expected risks and will help increase the
well productivity.
 Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, FAIM2014

4. IDENTIFYING THE PROBLEM OF PRODUCTION DECLINE

The problem of oil production decline may happen at any stage of the production if any of the causing reasons is
available. This problem is usually monitored by recording the oil flow rate at the head of the well [14]. However, there
are many well testing methods are used to identify and confirm the reasons of the decline. These methods include, but
not limited to, the following:
 Pressure survey test: this method is used to monitor the average reservoir pressure using different tools which
are fitted into the bottom of the well to record the pressure history of each well [15].
 Formation damage test: this is usually done by the use of pressure build-up and draw-down tests. These tests
determine whether the reservoir is damaged or not where the damage is reflected by a decrease in the average
reservoir permeability [16].
 Water coning test: this happens when the bottom reservoir water starts to cone around the wellbore. This can
be identified by monitoring the increased amount of the produced water and decreasing the oil production rate
which result in high water cut ratio [7].

5. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

According to the data presented in table 1 which was gathered from the Annual Statistics Bulletin (ASB) published
by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) [17], the total petroleum reserve has increased over the
last few years for the total world from 1,280,114 million barrels in 2008 to reach 1,478,211 million barrels in 2012 as
illustrated in figure 2.

Table 1: Shows data of the total world oil reserve, production and demand.

Year 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

Total world Reserves, million barrels 1,280,114 1,324,980 1,457,983 1,465,556 1,478,211
Total world Production, 1000 barrels/day 71,823.4 68,965.6 69,888.3 70,460.9 72,858.6
Total world Demand, 1000 barrels/day 86,067.9 84,780.4 87,187.2 88,103.8 88,868.5

Figure 2: Shows the total world oil reserve between 2008 & 2012.

The data presented in table 1 was used to run some useful calculations which are presented in table 2 on the next
page. The calculations show that the additional oil reserves of 198,097 million barrels of oil in 2012 represents 15.47%
comparing to the data of oil reserves in 2008. This increase is sufficient to cover the world demand of crude oil for
about six years based on the crude oil demand in 2012. Therefore, the achievement of the aims and objectives of this
research is expected to be a successful step towards producing more of the available oil which helps to provide more oil
for the total world in general and, moreover, to increase the financial income of many oil producing countries in
particular.
Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing Productivity of Oil Wells

Table 2: Shows some useful calculatitions using the data of oil reserve and demand.

Increase in crude oil reserves between 2008 and 2012 198,097 million barrels
% of increase comparing to 2008 15.47 %
Annual increase (over 4 years) 49,524 million barrels
Total world crude oil demand in 2012 88,868,500 Barrels/Day
Total world crude oil demand in 2012 32,459,219,625 Barrels/Year
Total world crude oil additional reserves in 2012 1.98097E+11 Barrels
Additional years recovered by the additional reserves 6.1 Years

However, the data of the total world oil production and demand between the years 2008 and 2012 shows that there
is a shortfall in the oil supply which is needed to meet the world’s oil demand as illustrated in figure 3. Therefore, it is
important to modify new methods that can be used to produce the available oil reserves without problems.

Figure 3: Shows the total world production and demand of oil between 2008 & 2012.

A further data of oil production history was collected for an oil well in Libya for investigating the preliminary
relationship between some parameters such as oil, gas and water production flow rates. For doing this, a simple three
dimensional model was plotted using DataFit software for the collected production data. The obtained graph shows
smooth data plotting as presented in figure 4 where the coefficient of multiple determinations, R2, is 0.99261. The
correlation between the three parameters is represented by equation 3 as follow:
Y=a*(X1)^b*C^X2 (3)
where, Y = oil production rate, BBL/Day , X1 = water production rate, BBL/Day, X2 = gas production rate,
SCF/Day and a, b, c = regression parameters:
Parameter Value
a 1289.84
b -0.6196
c 1.01234

Figure 4: Illustrates the three dimensional relationship between oil, gas and water production rates for an example well.
 Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, FAIM2014

A further data, presented in table 3, was collected for permeability of rocks to waters of different salinities from
Baptist and Sweeney [12]. This data was plotted on figure 5 to investigate the change in rocks’ permeability to the flow
of water when changing its salinity from 16,500 ppm to 8,250 ppm to 0 ppm. It was noticed that some of the samples
were very sensitive to the change in water salinity as their pores were completely blocked when injecting fresh water
whereas other samples were less affected by the salinity change. This alteration in permeability occurred as a result of
clay swelling and fine migration which happened when injecting waters of different salinities to the samples. However,
the graph shows that the permeability of samples is proportionally related to the change in the injected water’s salinity.
Therefore, there is possibility of finding a correlation which represents this relationship; however, this will require
more data of permeability to waters of different salinities and also data of the composition of the used rock samples.

Table 3: Shows the collected data for permeability to waters of different salinities.

Sample ka1 kb1 kb2 kw kaf Kaolins Illites Mixed layer

# md md md md md % % %
A 27 4.05 0.27 0 24.03 10.8 18.9 70.3
B 76 16.72 13.68 6.08 51.68 44.4 13.9 41.7
C 52 33.28 33.28 9.88 59.8 50.0 50.0 0.0
D 46 45.54 45.08 33.12 46 37.5 62.5 0.0

where, ka1: is the initial sample permeability to air in millidarcy, md.

kb1: is the sample permeability to the water of salinity 16,500 ppm.
kb2 : is the sample permeability to the water of salinity 8,250 ppm.
kw : is the sample permeability to fresh water, md.
kaf : is the final sample permeability to air, md.

Figure 5: Illustrates how rock permeability changes according to change in water salinity.

6. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR BETTER PERFORMANCE IN OIL WELLS

According to Alvadrado and Manrique [6], there are many methods such as enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and well
stimulation techniques can be used for increasing oil wells productivity and performance. However, the measurement
of a process performance which leads to a world-class performance excellence requires good knowledge about the
framework of that process [18]. Therefore, in the case of petroleum engineering, it is essential to benefit from the
existent experience in the petroleum industry and to think about the parameters which enhance the well performance
and increase the oil production and how to properly have a good preparation of these parameters from the very early
time of the well age. Thus, the parameters which control the performance of the well can be divided into two main
groups. The first group represents the parameters which have to be controlled before drilling the well whereas the other
Development of Predictive Production Model for Increasing Productivity of Oil Wells

group represents the parameters which occur at later stages of the well production. These two groups are described in
more details as follow:
1) Primary well performance parameters
When looking at the oil well from theoretical point of view, it can be seen that it looks like a manufacturing plant; it
needs good input parameters in order to give good production. In fact, there are four main input parameters which have
to perfectly be prepared and applied in order to achieve good well productivity. These parameters include well
planning, well drilling, well preparation and well completion. The application of these parameters needs good
experience because any errors at this stage will lead to unexpected future performance which may include financial
losses and worse production than expectations. Therefore, for an effective oil well performance, achieving the aim of
gaining good oil production requires the good choice and application of the essential input parameters which can be
summarized as follow:
 Well planning: this includes the choice of the well location which is very important and it has to carefully be
planned in accordance to geological data which is supplied by geoscientists before the start of the well drilling.
Wrong well location data could result in large financial losses which cannot be recovered if the well appeared
to be dry.
 Well drilling: there are different varieties of drilling tools which include different types of drilling bits and
pipes have to carefully be chosen. The choice of each of these depends on some parameters which include the
type of the drilled formation, the depth and the required penetration rate.
 Well preparation: this includes operations such as well cleaning, cementation and perforation. These
operations are used to prepare and clean the well hole from drilling cuts and fluids which are used during the
well drilling. The well cementation is used to support the well’s wall and prevent it from collapsing. The layer
of cement is perforated to allow oil production from the chosen productive formations. The good preparation
of the well for production plays a good role for extending the lifecycle of the well for many years.
 Well completion: this process include techniques such as well acidizing and formation fracturing. These
operations have to perfectly be conducted as any errors could damage the well badly. For example, when poor
acidizing process is applied, the area around the well bottom will not be cleaned as required causing
undesirable results which lead to blocking the formation channels and prevent the production. Therefore, good
well completion leads to good well production.
2) Secondary well performance parameters:
There are many parameters which appear after duration of the well production and, if not controlled properly, it will
lead to decreasing the oil production. These parameters include:
 Low reservoir pressure: the pressure of the reservoir will start to decrease after a period of production because
of the depletion. This will cause the production to decrease as the pressure is considered to be the main driving
force which enables the natural oil production.
 Low permeability: early production decline is more likely to occur in naturally low permeability reservoirs at
earlier time than in high permeability reservoirs. This is because the narrow rock pores are more likely to be
blocked as a result of fine sand migration and precipitations of wax and salts which prevent the fluids from
flowing towards the production wells.
 Formation damage: this is a major problem in oil wells. It happens as a result of many reasons which include
scale precipitation, wax formation, sand movement, formation collapsing and water coning. All these
problems lead to blocking the reservoir channels which transmit oil towards the production wells.
 Water coning: this problem happens when the bottom reservoir water starts moving towards the production
wells. This can happen as a consequence of many reasons which include producing oil at higher flow rate than
the optimum where this alters the capillary forces between water, oil and rocks. Also, the wrong location of
perforations leads to early water breakthrough specially when perforating near the water zone. Water coning
prevents the oil from being produced because water blocks the pore channels and prevents the movement of oil
towards the production wells.
 Flexible Automation and Intelligent Manufacturing, FAIM2014

7. CONCLUSION

In conclusion, this paper has summarized some of the main research findings and recommendations about the
causes and effects of oil production decline and the possible early solutions for this problem. The following is a
summary of the main key conclusions of this work:
 This research is very important and can be beneficial for the petroleum industry as it investigates the causes
and effects of oil production decline in oil wells.
 The research has presented some information about the improvements of well performance and explained the
main reasons of oil production decline. The research has also presented some calculations related to the oil
reserve and demand and showed that an increase in the world oil reserve by 15.47% is sufficient to cover the
total world demand for crude oil for about six years.
 The research has showed that good future performance of oil wells requires good initial planning which has to
begin from the moment of choosing the location of the well. Also, the parameters which affect the well
performance before and after the well drilling should be taking into account and perfectly controlled.
 The research has also presented a simple correlation for calculating the oil production rate when the gas and
water flow rates are known. Additionally, the research shows that the permeability of rocks is proportionally
related to the salinity of the injected water.

REFERENCES

[1] M. Lucky & R. Rogers: “Oil is Still World's Largest Energy Source, But Coal and Natural Gas are Gaining”. Web article
published by Environmental News Network (ENN), available at: www.enn.org (Last accessed: 10/11/2013), 2013.
[2] Energy Information Administration, EIA: “Annual Energy Review, (AER), 2011”, Web document, available at:
www.eia.gov (Last accessed: 06/11/2013), (2012).
[3] A. Y. Dandekar: “Petroleum Reservoir Rock and Fluid Properties”, CRC Press: US, 2006.
[4] L. P. Dake: “Fundamentals of Reservoir Engineering”, Elsevier, the Netherlands, 1978.
[5] D. Tiab and E.C. Donaldson: “Petrophysics: Theory and Practice of Measuring Reservoir Rock and Fluid Transport
Properties”, Second Edition, Elsevier, Oxford, 2003.
[6] V. Alvarado and E. Manrique: “Enhanced Oil Recovery”, Golf Professional Publishing, Oxford, 2010.
[7] T. Ahmed: “Reservoir Engineering Hand Book”, Fourth Edition, Elsevier, Oxford, 2010.
[8] W.C. Lyons and G.J. Plisga (Ed):”Standard Handbook of Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering”, Second Edition,
Elsevier, Oxford, 2005.
[9] D. Tiab and E.C. Donaldson: “Petrophysics: Theory and Practice of Measuring Reservoir Rock and Fluid Transport
Properties”, Third Edition, Elsevier, Oxford, 2012.
[10] T.W. Fens, M.A. Kraaijveld, L. Riepe and R. Visse: “Archie’s Dream: Petrophysics from Sidewall Samples and Cuttings”,
Society of Core Analysts (SCA), Paper: SCA1998-05, available at: www.scaweb.org, (Last accessed: 19/02/2014), 1998.
[11] A. Timur: “An Investigation of Permeability, Porosity and Residual Water Saturation Relationships”, Society of
Petrophysicists & Well Log Analysts, SPWLA 9th Annual Logging Symposium, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1968.
[12] O. C. Baptist and S. A. Sweeney: “The Effect of Clays on the Permeability of Reservoir Sands to Waters of Different Saline
Contents”, Bureau of Mines, US, 1954.
[13] S. Abbasi, A. Shadrabadi and H. Goghanddashti: “Experimental Investigation of Clay Minerals’ Effects on the Permeability
Reduction in Water Injection Process in the Oil Fields”, SPE European Formation Damage Conference, Noordwijk, the
Netherlands, 2011.
[14] J. Bellarby: “Well Completion Design” Elsevier, the Netherlands, 2009.
[15] Schulmberger (SLB): “Fundamental of Formation Testing”, Web document available at: www.slb.com, Schulmberger,
(Last accessed: 10/11/2013), 2006.
[16] A. U. Chaudhry: “Oil Well Testing Handbook”, Elsevier, Oxford, 2004.
[17] Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC): “Annual Statistical Bulletin”, web document available at:
www.opec.org, OPEC, (Last accessed: 03/10/2013), 2013.
[18] M. Ahmad and R. Benson: “Benchmarking in the process industries”, Institute of Chemical Engineering, Warwickshire, UK,
1999.

View publication stats